Judges decided the winner of the 2025 Federal Duck Stamp contest on Friday, September 19th. I watched the livestream, along with about 1,700 other fans. James Hautman’s acrylic painting of three Buffleheads in flight rose above the other 289 entries to capture first place. The image will grace the 2026-2027 Duck Stamp. Jim and his two brothers, Joe Hautman and Bob Hautman, are legendary in the duck stamp art world.

The British period piece, now streaming in the U.S., is set in Victorian England but speaks to modern experiences and attitudes.

On Mondays through Thursdays, the campus of the Questa Independent School District in rural Taos County, New Mexico, buzzes with activity. But on Fridays, the schools are quiet. The district, which serves around 315 students from Kindergarten to 12th grade, is one of 41 districts in New Mexico that use a four-day school week. In 2024, the New Mexico Public Education Department (PED) passed a state-wide rule that would require students to attend school for a minimum of 180 days each year, effectively eliminating the four-day school week.

On September 19, 2025, Trump passed an executive order requiring international applicants to pay a $100,000 fee to acquire H-1B visas, a program that allows employers to hire skilled workers in specialized positions. The new fee will affect a wide range of industries, including education, healthcare, technology, and research. Proponents of Trump’s new policy say that it will incentivize employers to hire American workers, but detractors argue that there aren’t enough skilled American workers available to fill those positions.

A new report found that mobile health clinics can provide rural communities with access to healthcare in areas where healthcare facilities and healthcare workers may be scarce. The report from the Georgetown University Center on Health Insurance Reform looked at more than 160 studies about mobile healthcare clinics. The study found that these “doctor’s offices on wheels” can improve health for both individuals and their communities, while reducing healthcare costs.

This story was originally published by the Maine Monitor. Phylis Allen spends her days looking for things. She searches for potatoes at Sam’s Club, cheap beets and ginger at Walmart and a local grocery store. She studies the weekly inventory from Good Shepherd, Maine’s only food bank, for good deals on butter and cheese. Every Monday morning, she shops at three different stores, keeping lists of prices in her head and remembering what particular clients want.

Editor’s Note: This conversation originally ran in the Path Finder’s newsletter in December 2023. The world has changed since then, but Elsie’s message of hope and empowerment for Indigenous communities still rings true. Today, we are highlighting this interview again in honor of Indigenous Peoples’ Day. Like what you see here? You can join the mailing list at the bottom of this article…

Already two years overdue, the latest extension of the 2018 farm bill expired on September 30, 2025. While the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA), signed into law in July, contained much of the policy usually included in the farm bill, it did not cover all of the programs that farmers and rural communities rely on. “Anything that was not included in the Republican budget bill is likely to end,” said Michael Happ, program associate for climate and rural communities at the…

Over 12 million people live in banking deserts – communities without a physical bank within a 10-mile radius. In rural areas, this leaves people without a place to get loans, deposit checks, and get cash. Many rural areas still prefer cash over other forms of payment like credit cards. Without banks, rural residents’ credit scores can drop, or they can be taken advantage of by predatory lending like payday loans.

With only three walls and no roof, some might mistake the Pecos Mission Church for a ruin. But the three hundred year old adobe structure is alive with cultural and spiritual significance, according to those who are working to preserve it. “The church is a monument, a testament to the people that once lived there,” said Christopher Toya, an archeologist and tribal historic preservation officer of the Jemez Pueblo.

Rural Georgia’s current demographic implosion didn’t happen overnight, or in a vacuum. Look behind headlines about the stunning number of counties reporting more deaths than births, and you’ll find an earlier economic signal that something was amiss: a breathtaking drop in per capita income (PCI) performance that began roughly a decade before rural Georgia hit its demographic tipping point. The downturn in the state’s PCI performance was all the more startling because it followed at least 20 years of remarkable improvement.

Since January, the Trump administration has threatened funding for tribal colleges, erased Navajo history, and proposed cuts to tribal housing programs. But amid these attacks, the Navajo Nation is charting a different path, one that prioritizes cultural preservation, education sovereignty, and long-term investment in its community. From the development of a new textbook to record-breaking enrollments in Diné Studies programs, the Navajo Nation has prioritized education at every level with a sharp focus on history, language, identity, and generational knowledge.

This story was originally published by OpenCampus in collaboration with Flatwater Free Press. Growing up on a reservation in Montana, the career path for Tyse Rogers seemed obvious. Kids would turn 16, get their GEDs and go straight to work at the local lumberyard, joining their parents and neighbors at the biggest employer in town. Rogers took a different path.

A new program touted to give $50 billion in federal funding to rural hospitals won’t necessarily keep rural hospitals from closing, according to several experts in rural health. The funding is part of a compromise made in Congress to help rural communities after H.R. 1, the “One Big Beautiful Bill,” now being rebranded as the “Working Families Tax Cuts Law,” eliminated more than $911 billion from Medicaid.

This story was originally published by MinnPost. Thick-cut ham, pickle wraps, fresh fruit mixes. To loyal customer Susan Lieberg, these food items show how responsive her rural grocery store is to its patrons. KC’s Country Market in Greenbush, a northwestern Minnesota city of about 680 residents, has what she calls “Marty-style” ham, which the store started offering after learning of her husband’s preference for it.

On the evening of August 21, 2025, Chris Giokaris hopped on the interstate heading southeast from his hometown of Tucson, Arizona. His destination was Benson, a town of about 5,500 people located 50 miles away. The small town is known as the gateway to the San Pedro Valley, in large part for the San Pedro River that winds its way north from Mexico as one of the last undammed rivers in the Sonoran Desert.

Editor’s Note: This interview first appeared in Path Finders, an email newsletter from the Daily Yonder. Each week, Path Finders features a Q&A with a rural thinker, creator, or doer. Like what you see here? You can join the mailing list at the bottom of this article and receive more conversations like this in your inbox each week. Cedar Monroe grew up in rural Grays Harbor County, Washington.

It’s one of the most distinctive sounds in country and bluegrass music. You can hear it in the singing of Patty Loveless, Keith Whitley and Ricky Skaggs. The way these Appalachian-born singers bend and glide and flip over their melodies—it can stir your soul and break your heart at the same time. You can trace this style of singing back to bluegrass legends like Ralph Stanley.

Our latest TV roundup features more small-town dramas, murder mysteries, and even a reality show about rural game wardens.

Editor’s Note: This post is from our data newsletter, the Rural Index, headed by Sarah Melotte, the Daily Yonder’s data reporter. Subscribe to get a weekly map or graph straight to your inbox. Experts often use housing vacancy rates as one of several measures to examine the state of an area’s housing market. In rural America, a high vacancy rate can point to low housing demand and therefore lower housing costs, but that’s not always the case.

Leo’s Community Development Center in Superior, Arizona, serves people before they even enter the building. The free clothing rack and food stand outside are always open, and people take what they need and leave what they can. Free community meals every Wednesday night bring in a mix of people from all walks of life. Once a month, workshops on emergency preparedness or resiliency practices follow the meal.

This story was originally published by KFF Health News. Olivia Owlett chose to do her primary care residency in the Northern California college town of Chico largely because it faces many of the same health care challenges she grew up with. Owlett is one of four residents in the inaugural class of a three-year family medicine residency program run by the local nonprofit…

There was no shortage of buffalo check flannel and cowboy boots among attendees of Farm Aid’s 40th anniversary concert in Minneapolis, Minnesota, on September 20, 2025, but alongside them were just as many folks clad in t-shirts with “Stop Factory Farms” printed on the front. This message summed up the main takeaway of the event: farmers need just as much support now as they did 40 years ago, when the 1980s farm crisis spurred Farm Aid’s first benefit concert.

This story was originally published by Stateline. The residents of Roane County, West Virginia, enjoy living among the rolling mountains and winding, two-lane roads. Situated between Charleston and Parkersburg, two of the state’s largest cities, the rural county is known for its small towns and historic buildings. That’s how Sherry Husted, the director of the Roane County Public Libraries, described her native community as she worked last week at Geary Public Library in Left Hand, West Virginia.

Editor’s Note: This interview first appeared in Path Finders, an email newsletter from the Daily Yonder. Each week, Path Finders features a Q&A with a rural thinker, creator, or doer. Like what you see here? You can join the mailing list at the bottom of this article and receive more conversations like this in your inbox each week. Mary Ardery is a writer and poet from Indiana.